Re: Aus Federal Politics thread (V)

[Hass]

pell is still ducking the media on the church cover ups of abuse of kids by priests....the MM is very quiet on that issue at the mo

We had it as the lead story on Lateline last night.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3557832.htm

[skully]

Yeah, Labor doesn't care about polls

"LEAKED internal polling shows federal Labor would be shut out in four states and several key frontbenchers would risk defeat if an election were held now.

The polling, conducted last month and leaked to the Seven Network, revealed Labor would fail to win any seats in Queensland, the Northern Territory, Tasmania and Western Australia.

It also found Treasurer Wayne Swan, Special Minister of State Gary Gray, Trade Minister Craig Emerson and Veterans Affairs Minister Warren Snowdon would be at risk of losing their seats.

Parliamentary secretaries Sid Sidebottom and Jan McLucas, along with former prime minister and foreign minister Kevin Rudd would also struggle to keep their seats, it said."

----------------------------------------------

[snigger]


Meanwhile, in other news, I was shopping around for a better Electricity deal via One Big Switch, and was recommended to go with TruEnergy with an alleged 17% discount. I called my current retailer and TruEnergy, and the very first thing they both said to me after I asked for the kWhr rates was "Oh, bear in mind these have all gone up since the Carbon tax came in". The change - peak usage up from 20.60c/kWhr to 24.40c/kWhr = 18.4% increase.

And the quntish Pinkos wonder why they are on the nose.


How's that $200 quarterly electricity bill looking, Ponts?

Oh, and BTW, once I crunched the numbers and took into account the termination fee with my current retailer, Tru Energy were actually slightly dearer. What a farkin con. My colleague had recently changed under the same recommendation. He redid his numbers once I gave him all the info I had, and he too found he was no better off. So he called to cancel and was put on hold for 90 minutes!!!!

[skully]

Oh dear, it's all unravelling at the seams

"THE former union official and alleged bagman for a financial scandal linked to the then boyfriend of Julia Gillard wants to give evidence for the first time to police and prosecutors about his role and the conduct of others.

Most of the funds that allegedly went missing had been paid into an entity, the AWU Workplace Reform Association. Ms Gillard did legal work associated with establishment of the association as part of her role working for the union. At the time, Mr Wilson and Ms Gillard were in a close relationship."

-----------------------------------

Yes, mostly old news, but the bagman spilling will hardly fill Jooliar with joy.

The Vulture's carcass is really starting to pong.

[horace]

pell is still ducking the media on the church cover ups of abuse of kids by priests....the MM is very quiet on that issue at the mo

We had it as the lead story on Lateline last night.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3557832.htm

yep I saw it...the only person coming out of this well is the ex copper now Nat MP...good on him I say...I expect the MM will try to tell him to shut up...

Unfortunately the Parl. Inquiry in Victoria is limited in terms of scope, powers, time and resources...nonetheless I expect momentum will continue to build on this issue...while RC Church is nervous they are not alone...other churchie groups are nervous as I expect will be various community services departments in different jursidictions

the Melb Age has been a running a series of stories about the large number of cases of alleged staff abuse of people with disabilities

[bodyline]

THE former union official and alleged bagman for a financial scandal linked to the then boyfriend of Julia Gillard wants to give evidence for the first time to police and prosecutors about his role and the conduct of others.

The Australian can reveal that Ralph Blewitt, a one-time branch head for the Australian Workers Union, is seeking immunity from criminal prosecution in return for breaking a 17-year silence and providing a statement to police.

In interviews with The Australian, Mr Blewitt has spoken of his past actions and those of his then best friend and AWU boss Bruce Wilson.

He has also discussed the Prime Minister's relationship with Mr Wilson and her simultaneous legal work for the union in her 1990s role as an industrial lawyer and partner at Slater & Gordon solicitors.

"I could face criminal charges," he said. "My lawyers have told me that if I seek to tell the whole story, they will seek immunity from prosecution for me.








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Recommended Coverage
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Police should probe union scandal: Libs


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"If I get that, I am more than prepared to tell the whole story to the best of my ability. I will make myself available (to police) on that one condition - that I have immunity from prosecution. Then the whole story can be put to bed once and for all."

Mr Blewitt is the former legal owner of a house in Melbourne's inner-city suburb of Fitzroy that was used by Mr Wilson and allegedly bought with misappropriated AWU funds in a transaction handled and part-financed by Slater & Gordon.

The terrace house in Kerr Street later became part of a major police and union investigation as Mr Blewitt and Mr Wilson were accused of illegally siphoning hundreds of thousands of dollars from the AWU, including funds companies such as Thiess handed over in the belief it was to pay for members' courses and training.

Most of the funds that allegedly went missing had been paid into an entity, the AWU Workplace Reform Association. Ms Gillard did legal work associated with establishment of the association as part of her role working for the union. At the time, Mr Wilson and Ms Gillard were in a close relationship. The Prime Minister has repeatedly and strenuously denied that she had any knowledge of what the association was going to be used for, and has also denied receiving any benefit.

Ms Gillard yesterday declined to respond to specific questions put to her office by The Australian and referred the newspaper to her previous strong denials of wrongdoing. Mr Wilson, who was ousted from the union, has in the past strenuously denied any wrongdoing and he was not charged after probes by the AWU and police into the matter.

Now a part-time cook at a club in NSW, he has declined to speak about his role and Ms Gillard.

Mr Blewitt has now engaged a criminal lawyer in Melbourne to help him negotiate a deal or plea-bargain with authorities. In the 1990s, police in Victoria and Western Australia spent significant time and resources investigating the allegations.

Mr Blewitt has been examining hundreds of documents relating to the claims, which the AWU's former head, Ian Cambridge, now a Fair Work Australia commissioner, once pursued relentlessly through the courts and which he said required a royal commission. Other documents from police internal files, released last month under Freedom of Information laws and obtained by The Australian, show detectives pursued an investigation for almost three years. Police shelved the case on legal advice only after Mr Blewitt and Mr Wilson refused to co-operate or engage.

Mr Blewitt, now 66, told The Australian he "would like the whole thing to go away, quite frankly, but I don't think it will".

"I think that . . . the story needs to be told. I need to clear the air," he said. "I do not want to be hounded about it forever . . . In the course of that, if certain people are embarrassed or worse, it's too bad. I want to apologise to the AWU and its members - but at no time was it my intention to steal funds from the AWU. I never personally benefited from any of those funds in any way whatsoever.

"I have not spoken publicly about these issues before. I am not a member of any political party now and I have no intention of rejoining one.

"I left Australia (to live in Asia) in 1997 and I have not voted since. I have got no illusions about this. It's not my objective to destroy the ALP. In fact, it hurts to be saying this about the ALP."

The allegations have dogged Ms Gillard's political career amid repeated attacks in state and federal parliament on her legal advice and actions, her connection to the players in the alleged fraud, and her close relationship with the AWU's then up-and-coming Mr Wilson at the time Ms Gillard was seeking a political career for herself.

A fortnight before Labor's 2007 election win, in a story headlined "A conman broke my heart", she said of her relationship with Mr Wilson when she was at Slater & Gordon and in her early to mid-30s: "I was young and naive. I was in a relationship, which I ended, and obviously it was all very distressing.

"I am by no means the first person to find out that someone close turns out to be different to what you had believed them to be.

"I was obviously hurt when I was later falsely accused publicly of wrongdoing."

Ms Gillard's personal relationship with Mr Wilson and the legal relationship with the union ended amid turmoil as Mr Wilson came under police and AWU investigation.

Mr Wilson was subsequently ousted from the union. He was not charged after the police investigations.

Ms Gillard's former federal attorney-general and cabinet colleague Robert McClelland, whom she sacked over his support for Kevin Rudd, raised the matter in June in federal parliament and in a subsequent interview with The Australian.

Documents obtained by The Australian show that as an AWU lawyer before entering politics, Mr McClelland fought to bring the alleged fraud to light in the 1990s.

In his pointed comments in parliament in June, he expanded on how his experience as an opposing lawyer to Ms Gillard in the matter had "coloured much of my thinking" about union cases.

Ms Gillard did not respond to Mr McClelland's comments.

[lardbucket]

So this - now - is all just more attempts by Rudd's camp to oust Julia, by any means, fair or foul?

[skully]

PMSL@Krudd MkII

"BILL Shorten has apologised to Melbourne pie shop owner Annie Wong after "a big misunderstanding" over a hot pie.

The man tipped to be Australia's next Labor Prime Minister was accused by store owner Annie Wong of verbally abusing him after she offered to microwave a pie and swearing as he left the shop – a claim Mr Shorten denies.

"Bill Shorten came into my shop, asked for a Boscastle pie, then I say: 'Sold out, sorry,'" Ms Wong told radio broadcaster Neil Mitchell.

Annie Wong said she offered to put a cold pie in the microwave for him, but warned it would be softer.

Mr Shorten told news.com.au that he believed Ms Wong had said to him "It would be soft, like Julia Gillard."

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Heard this on the wireless this arvo.

Allegedly the F-word was definitely dropped. Perhaps he told Annie to "Get farked, you little rat-farker."

And even if she did say what he thought, hardly becoming of a senior Pinko to bark at one of his precious battling Australians. Annie claimed she actually said "It would be soft, I like Julia Gillard."

[taipan]

What does the pie man say?

[JGK]

PMSL@Krudd MkII

"BILL Shorten has apologised to Melbourne pie shop owner Annie Wong after "a big misunderstanding" over a hot pie.

The man tipped to be Australia's next Labor Prime Minister was accused by store owner Annie Wong of verbally abusing him after she offered to microwave a pie and swearing as he left the shop – a claim Mr Shorten denies.

"Bill Shorten came into my shop, asked for a Boscastle pie, then I say: 'Sold out, sorry,'" Ms Wong told radio broadcaster Neil Mitchell.

Annie Wong said she offered to put a cold pie in the microwave for him, but warned it would be softer.

Mr Shorten told news.com.au that he believed Ms Wong had said to him "It would be soft, like Julia Gillard."

---------------------------------------

Heard this on the wireless this arvo.

Allegedly the F-word was definitely dropped. Perhaps he told Annie to "Get farked, you little rat-farker."

And even if she did say what he thought, hardly becoming of a senior Pinko to bark at one of his precious battling Australians. Annie claimed she actually said "It would be soft, I like Julia Gillard."

Meh. She's a small business owner. She's probably exploiting her staff and ripping off the tax man. She deserved it.

[horace]

indeed....with brit backpackers workers being paid cash in hand

[JGK]

And she's probably killing local fauna to put in her pies.

[skully]

She was in the shop alone. Clearly the only way Shorten would be man enough to swear at a woman, when there are no witnesses.

[JGK]

She it's her word against his?

[skully]

I know who I'd believe.

CCTV clearly shows him turning and barking something.

[JGK]

Shorten's piping hot meat and greet

August 3, 2012 - 4:34PM

Jacqueline Maley


All he wanted was a pie. Sometimes what a man needs is just that: a pie.

But when federal workplace minister Bill Shorten walked into Carlton North Foods in Melbourne on Thursday afternoon to satisfy his straight-up longing for a tasty stew of mince meat encased in a crisp pastry shell, what he got was a hot serve of back-chat.

The putative pie purveyor, shop-keeper Annie Huang, said she informed the Cabinet minister she was all out of pies. She would be happy to microwave one for him, she said, but it would be soft.

Not everyone likes a soft pie.

Upon hearing this disappointing news, Mr Shorten became abusive, Ms Huang told Fairfax radio.

If true, he would certainly not be the first man thrown into a rage when so denied, but Mr Shorten narrates the story differently.

He says that Ms Huang told him that the pies were ''soft, like Julia Gillard''. He took this as an insult to his leader, exited the shop and told her that he would no longer be purchasing her pies, or darkening her doorstep at all.

Not even for a pastie or a mini-quiche.

As with all great contemporary mysteries, CCTV footage was released.

The film shows a mannish figure, unmistakably Shorten-esque, entering the shop, perusing the goods, and then walking out soon after, in what may or may not be a huff. Oh - and look now! - there he pauses at the door, swivels his head and retorts something in the direction of the cash register.

In an effort to clear up the misunderstanding, Mr Shorten gave a doorstop interview, with what will surely go down as the greatest lament in Australian political history: ''I think she was giving me political advice when all I wanted was a hot pie''.

But Ms Huang said that what she actually said was: ''The pie will be soft. I like Julia Gillard.''

Which is surely the greatest non-sequitur in Australian political history.

Mr Shorten apologised and Ms Huang will no doubt recover from the episode.

What have we learned?

That politics and pastry don't mix, that the Labor right does not take kindly to being labelled ''soft'', and that microwaved pies never did please anyone.



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/shortens-piping-hot-meat-and-greet-20120803-23kdy.html#ixzz22SlTuX1G

[skully]

NTR.

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